The pandemic has been challenging for children, but if we stop and listen, we can find out what they need | Saretta Lee

Kids usually have something to say and they need us to hear it. So it's time to start listening - for their future and ours

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

In nearly two years of lockdown interruptions, I've often been asked for my professional opinion about the impact of Covid-19 measures on children. A great many views have been expressed on this, and I've hesitated to add to the fray. But the questions keep coming, so from my experience as a child psychiatrist seeing children in cancer wards, after accidents, falls, fractures, and now seeing children and adolescents in emergency departments, mainly for depression, self-harm, anxiety or suicidal thoughts, here are the things I've observed of children in distress over the pandemic.